Anti-Monopoly Minister on support to small businesses

Some 100m rubles ($3.16m) in resources envisaged in the 2003 federal budget for the support of small businesses are unlikely to reach their destination, Anti-Monopoly Minister Ilya Yuzhanov declared at today's meeting of the enlarged Board of the Anti-Monopoly Ministry. According to him, the draft of a procedure of distributing these resources was submitted to the government 3.5 months ago and it has not been signed yet. Even if it is approved in the near future and resources are allocated, it will be necessary to conduct tenders among small businesses, which is rather problematic to accomplish until the end of the year, the minister believes.